


The Moon was in His Hair

by fapwater



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Drabble, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hajime Hinata - Freeform, Healing, Kamukura Izuru mention, Komaeda Nagito Being Komaeda Nagito, M/M, Nagito Komaeda - Freeform, One Shot, Post-Despair (Dangan Ronpa), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Writing Exercise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:27:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24647191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fapwater/pseuds/fapwater
Summary: Nagito and Hajime vent about life to each other
Relationships: Hinata Hajime/Komaeda Nagito
Kudos: 72





	The Moon was in His Hair

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry, I know. Its another vent/practice. I have so many ideas but its just hard to get it out.  
> Hopefully, this is good for someone even if it's just me. I just wanted to publish something.

Hinata sat up in his bed.  
Shirt was slightly damp with sweat and head swarming with irritation. No position was able to provide him the comfort he needed to close his eyes for longer than at least 30 seconds. He ponders for a minute before realizing there’s nothing that could coddle him. No fleeting images of blissful dreams, no clean silky sheet, no warm body. He ran his hair through his already messy hair.  
“Arghh-!”  
Hajime slowly turned his head towards the cottage window.

The moon is full, bright, wondrous. 

The torturous situation of classmates murdering classmates didn’t make sense. But what was worse?  
Even upon escaping… things didn't remotely feel safe. In fact, Hajime found himself wishing that he were a victim. Killed, hung, stabbed, anything that would have spared him from paying the price that comes with survival… Trauma.

“How selfish…” He found himself muttering to the walls of his room as if they heard his thoughts. 

Still staring at the white, milky glow that the moon engulfed his room with, he swung his legs over the bed, his feet barely skimming the cold hardwood ground.

Hajime felt like the moon sometimes.  
-  
He let his heavy feet wander to wherever he wanted. Wherever the soft, chilly breath of the island called him to. His body was wrapped in a throw from this cottage and he was barefoot. Hajime couldn’t find it in him to mind the rough texture of the earth beneath him, he especially didn’t mind when his aimless direction of roaming led him to the beach.  
-  
Apparently, he wasn’t the only one disturbed by invasive thoughts to the point of insomnia. On the beach, he discovered Komaeda. Kicking up sand as he was strolling along the shore.  
The night cooled everything down, so Hinata hugged himself tighter with the blanket around his shoulders. The breeze was chilled, his arms slowly revealed goosebumps and even Komaeda’s presence… was cool. 

It didn’t seem like the usual manic behavior he had witnessed in trials nor did he come off aloof.

Despite Nagito’s frail physical appearance, the threatening labyrinth of a mind that lay behind his pale jade eyes really was a menace, he thought, not entirely convinced it was such a bad thing. He wonders if Nagito himself could even fathom just a small, very minute portion of what goes on in his own head. And the way the other classmates avoid and dismiss him, one could think Nagito’s nature was identical to the serpent that tarnished Eden with its just poisonous words. 

Was Nagito that treacherous?

The shades of melancholy blue of the night surrounding the misconceived Nagito as the focal point. Along his flowy creamy hair looked like the perfect somber subject for a painting. For some sad artist in need of an even sadder muse.

Nagito was blending into the distance more and more as he slowly was walking in the opposite direction of Hajime. Hands in pockets, head shifting from the ground and tilting back to look into the sky.  
Looking at the back of messy hair, his skinny build, observing him like this…

The whirl of conflicting confusion seemed to silence itself with one sentence.

‘People fear what they don’t understand’ Hajime thought finally.

-

“Ah, I was starting to wonder if you were ever going to come to talk to me.” He said before only halfway turning his body to drink in a good look at Hajime’s stunned expression. He was expecting to surprise Nagito, not the other way around. 

“I wouldn’t bother getting near anything as revolting as me… But still, I’m glad you did!” The other continued with a forced smile. 

“R-Right…” 

Hesitation was present in Hajime’s movements now, unsure of how to adjust to Nagito’s presence. He froze as Nagito suddenly plopped into the sand, sitting with his knees close to his chest. 

Hinata sat down next to Komaeda, not really caring about the sand that will end up getting stuck in the fabric.  
“What is hope for you, Hajime?” He asked without even looking.  
There was little animation in his voice and in his face. He looked among the sea as if he was watching his quirk swim away from him. Not even a hint of a grin. 

“ For me, it's like that.” Hajime, still gazing at him, transfixed at how pale light appears on Nagito’s porcelain skin, was confused for a moment till Nagito's answer reflected in his own eyes.

Oh, the moon.

Hajime shifted his sight to what could be a celestial body in the sky.

“When the moon is in daylight, you can't see it…”  
Nagito explains while they both notice the way the light dances and twinkles upon the rise and fall of the waves.

“But when everything is dark, it's the brightest thing in the sky, even with the other stars nearby.”

The moonlight looked as if it paved a white, sparkling path on the surface of the water like someone could take steps right onto it and go miles out, just saunter until everything in sight is just deep shades of navy and all is heard is the sound of waves folding into each other. The longing expression that painted Nagito’s soft features seemed as if he was yearning for that… aching… in the most flattering way possible.  
How can someone so sad be so captivating?

Why was he so sad?

Hajime pondered for a second, soaking in the details of Nagito’s imagery before speaking up to interject. 

“Yeah but… if hope and the moon are so alike… that would mean its not *always* there even at night.”

Nagito did not turn his head, so he was gazing at Hajime out the corner of his eyes. Hajime didn't notice this at first but when he did, he processed the look as a cue to elaborate further.

“I mean,” Hajime cleared his throat, aiming for a more confident sounding tone.

“The moon has phases. Sometimes, it appears as if it isn’t there at all. When you take that into consideration then yeah. I think the moon is a lot like hope. You can’t always find it at times but it is there… Always…”

Both boys focused now on the mysterious orb in the sky and both boys now softly smiled. As if they saw the moon goddess was blushing at the sight of two humans trying so hard to understand her and associating her with something as surreal as hope. Rewarding them both with a flashy exquisite smile and a wink.  
Hajime could detect a warm giddiness blossoming within his chest, for some reason. The occasional sound of the waves reaching up the shore, then receding back into its body. He embraced the long awaited sensation of serenity. Sitting side by side with Nagito, he only hoped that the other person felt the same.

Guess he didn’t, concluded Hajime following Nagito’s sudden question, pulling him from the blue, odd reality.

His content grin faded as well.

“Hajime,” Nagito started. “What am I to you?”

The blunt urgency in the sound of Nagito’s almost panicky voice caused Hajime’s brain to reboot. The content of the question made him want to shut down completely because… how was he supposed to answer that?

“You’re my friend.” He said after a moment, making sure his words were armed with absolute credence so that Nagito couldn’t seek anything that could trigger his insecurity and convince him otherwise.

“Ah… I see.” Nagito muttered with an expression like a blank canvas, eyes scanning the pitch horizon. “How disappointing.”

Hajime could have sworn he felt his eye twitch and could feel his chest be penetrated by the icicles of Nagito’s words. He would recover from it quickly though, after all, he was growing a little immune to Nagito’s harsh ways.. 

“Aha… W-Why’s that?” Hajime hesitantly asked, not 100% wanting to hear the answer. 

“Well. I just keep thinking… I want to really embody hope, it's been in me this whole time… I can do it.”

He speaks of a wonderful revelation with such a doubtful tune, Hajime thought.

“Isn’t that a good thing, Nagito?”

“Mmm. No. It means that false hope I had been clinging to is a lie… It means I’ve gone backward. I think of myself becoming hopeful and get so overwhelmed with how disgusting I am. Like I’m at square one… Just stuck with me and my useless talent. How could I ever learn to believe in such a thing…?” 

Hajime thinks he understands, however, not enough to provide the comfort Nagito might be seeking. Then again, his demeanor… He might not be looking for comfort at all.  
Comfort is vaguely relevant when someone is searching for the truth about themselves. 

Nagito continued after Hajime failed to respond in time. 

“I guess I just wanted someone to see me as that… since… it’s truly impossible for me”

Nagito had come a long way from yearning for a purpose to the point he’d give his life to anyone or anything as long as it was for the grand masterpiece of hope to now, figuring out how that grand masterpiece was him.  
Hajime dwells and debates on letting Nagito hear his perspective but the words get lodged in his throat like a two-year-old recklessly sucking on hard candy. 

The silence was not exactly awkward after Nagito revealing a hint of vulnerability… But scooting closer to toss the blanket over his shoulder didn’t help the cause. However, Nagito didn’t seem too alarmed, just protested as expected.  
Nagito’s jacket was not even zipped and his loosely fitted shirt hung low. His collar bones protruding, goosebumps rising on his arms. 

“H-Hajime, that's unnecessary! Im fi-”

It was already too late. Hajime had already draped the soft throw over both of them and situated himself in a position closer to the other boy. 

A few moments of silence drifted by, not exactly sure how many minutes to be exact. Time felt like a distant concept in this blue scene. 

“I know… That I’m the Ultimate Hope and all.. But if I’m being honest with you…” Hajime stopped, feeling like his voice would crack if it all came out at once.  
“I don’t fucking feel like it… There are days where… His voice is louder than usual…I feel very far from the person I am supposed to be, you know?”

This time, his voice did tremble and he was nervous that his composure was next. But even so, what better person would be better to wilt into a puddle of shame in front of, other than Nagito Komaeda? 

Hajime only consented that thought for a split second. 

Maybe that's giving him too much credit. Way too much. Hajime felt a sudden shock of regret when remembering Nagito’s spiel of hope, his disappointment he never hindered expressing when things weren’t going his way, including his expectations of people. 

His very own remorse weighed a ton on him plus that condescending and seering green stare of Nagito’s? That would be the very thing that makes his knees buckle and get him crushed completely. 

But no matter how Hajime felt sharing it, it was still the truth. And that felt liberating to release.

Hajime could feel the fabric of Nagito’s jacket brush against his forearm. His sudden vomit of raw feelings left him with an empty pit of stinging loneliness, even with the other right by him.

“.. haha.” Nagito chuckled, to Hajime’s surprise. “I kind of get it. Maybe you are like me… Or maybe I’m like you! Although, I don’t exactly think it would be kind of me to compare you to something as hideous as me, let alone relate to.”

It was sadly amusing that Hajime couldn't even grasp Nagito’s hand at this moment. His metallic prosthetic was absent, nowhere to be found. 

For some mysterious reason, that's what Hajime wanted to do. Caress the other's hand and distract himself with the sensation of touching him. But maybe it wouldn't be much of a remedy… Reaching for comfort in cold metal. 

And that's when Hajime realized...

He huffed through his nose, somewhat relieved at Nagito’s response.

“No, it's not bad like you think.”  
-

Hope is not a distraction.  
The hope others radiate isn't always a glowing revelation that bursts through your chest.  
It's not a change of hair color or eye color.

It's the calling into the darkness and submerging further and further into the threatening night with someone… knowing that they will never let you wander too far.

Their conversation seemed to end there but the stillness of the world around said a lot to each other. Especially when the moon was dancing through Nagito’s hair and how lost Hajime felt without a hand to hold.


End file.
